From the Premier League title to the FOMO of the Champions League. If there was ever evidence of how quickly a conversation around a club can change, Chelsea's mini-crisis has provided it.
Their 0-0 draw with Everton, their 2-1 defeat to Fulham and their 2-0 defeat to Ipswich – all in the space of nine days – have changed perceptions. Consensus suggests that perhaps it was folly to consider them equal rivals to established contenders like Liverpool and Arsenal, but the fact is that after beating Brentford in mid-December they were just two points off the top.
Enzo Maresca will face the media today before traveling to Crystal Palace tomorrow, and the silver lining, if there is one, is that he won't be asked if they can be crowned champions this season. He never liked those questions, looking back as if we were as deluded as those people who claim Jesus Christ appeared on their toast.
Instead, you can expect to be grilled about the resurrection that is required now that they have faltered at the halfway point, and how much damage is being done to their chances of qualifying for the Champions League by stalling in games they really should be winning. .
This is the first major test of Maresca's credentials since joining Chelsea. The 44-year-old Italian knew how to distance himself from other club dramas: the Enzo Fernández racist scandal in the summer, the division between Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, the Mykhailo Mudryk doping investigation, etc. “My attention is on the field because it is the only thing I can control,” he reminded us. But this? This is your territory.
This is tactics, this is motivation, and this is a challenge he must overcome if he doesn't want the “told you so” traders dusting off their keyboards after the summer scrutiny over his appointment.
Enzo Maresca's Chelsea are experiencing a mini-slump with two defeats and a draw in nine days
Chelsea had been talked about as a Premier League contender before their disappointing end to the year.
While waiting for Maresca to enter the press room following Chelsea's latest poor performance, some local Ipswich journalists were reflecting on what they had witnessed. One took us back to the warm-up, where he said that of all the Premier League visitors who turned up at Portman Road, he hadn't seen any team make as many moves as Chelsea.
Only Maresca players will know if they treated that trip differently to others, as Christopher Nkunku performed steps, Noni Madueke performed maintenance, etc. If the group arrived at Ipswich anticipating an easy night, then that was their first mistake, as England's elite have no time for such rights.
Ipswich may have had six starters in their squad who were with the club in League One: Christian Walton, Luke Woolfenden, Leif Davis, Sam Morsy, Wes Burns and Nathan Broadhead have joined their manager Kieran McKenna on that trip, but they wanted it. further. Liam Delap is an admired striker internally at Chelsea, and the Englishman formerly managed by Maresca in Manchester City's Elite Development Squad led the charge from the front.
They made Chelsea look like what they are: the youngest team in the Premier League working under a new head coach. Maresca has spent a significant portion of his season trying to turn his boys into men, kicking the butts of Madueke, Reece James and even Cole Palmer at times. Until now, he has made these public criticisms from a position of strength, but when the team falls below expectations, it sounds like a much riskier strategy.
Maresca must now demonstrate why Chelsea chose him in the summer instead of McKenna and Co. When searching for Mauricio Pochettino's successor, seven criteria were drawn up to measure their candidates, one of which was the “desire to control matches with defensive stability”.
However, over the Christmas period a pattern emerged. The Blues achieved their highest possession figures of the season (75 per cent at Everton and 76 per cent at Ipswich), but failed to score in consecutive away games in the Premier League for the first time since February 2019.
Opponents seem increasingly content to let the Blues have the ball, marking Palmer to limit his influence and believing they lack the necessary ruthlessness even if they do find a way through.
There is also growing optimism that at some point in the 90 minutes Chelsea will give them a chance, as was the case when Axel Disasi made the wrong pass in his own defensive third of the pitch that led to Omari Hutchinson scoring against his former club to confirm Ipswich's first home win in the Premier League in 8,286 days.
Six Ipswich Town players have been at Portman Road since the club was still in League One.
Ipswich made Chelsea look like what they are: the youngest team in the league with a new manager
Teams have been content to let Chelsea have the ball and take Cole Palmer out of games.
Disasi was a central defender playing as a right-back, even though Josh Acheampong, Malo Gusto and James were on the bench, as the Maresca team's adjustments did not work this time.
Maresca was quite satisfied with the performance. He has already reminded his players how many chances they created and that on another day they would have scored on several of them.
He hopes to stop being a card-carrying member of the 'coulda, shoulda, shoulda' club tomorrow when they travel to Palace, another team likely to allow them to control possession. The Blues were at 63 percent when they faced the Eagles earlier in the season, drawing 1-1 in another outing where they weren't ruthless enough.
Maresca has been here before. At Leicester last season, they lost three games in two weeks to Bristol City, Millwall and Plymouth, each by a score of 1-0.
Guillem Balague, the Spanish football journalist who cheers on Maresca, reposted clips from those defeats showing Leicester creating big chances. He wrote at the time: “If a coach prepares the team to carry the ball from one end to the other, what else can a coach do here?”
In other words, you are leading the horse to water, so don't blame him if he doesn't drink. Leicester fans responded that it was Maresca's fault for selecting the same old starters, not using his substitutes properly and making the same mistakes week after week with the strongest team in the championship, while citing Albert's definition of madness Einstein.
Maresca is accused of something similar at Chelsea, especially given his reluctance to use his bench to its full potential, given the depth available to him. They are such a strong team that in the Conference League they were able to use a B team and win all six of their games by a combined score of 26-5.
A look back at the last four games shows there was one substitute against Brentford, two against Everton, one against Fulham and four used at Ipswich, but only once when they were 2-0 down. Questions are being asked about whether he trusts Joao Félix, for example, and what influence he had on that £45m summer signing from Atletico Madrid when academy graduate and fan favorite Conor Gallagher went the other way. .
Maresca has been through this before, enduring a difficult period with Leicester last season.
Mail Sport can confirm that the Blues are withdrawing Aaron Anselmino from his loan at Boca Juniors
Chelsea are hoping for a more routine win at Crystal Palace than on recent visits.
Maresca is dealing with injury problems, especially at the back. Mail Sport have confirmed that they are withdrawing Aaron Anselmino from his loan to Boca Juniors, so the 19-year-old Argentine could provide some reinforcement in the defensive department. The January window is also open, although Chelsea insiders maintain they are not going to overreact by wasting money.
This is a strong team that Maresca is working with, regardless of injuries, and who should have picked up more than a point from three games with Everton, Fulham and Ipswich.
It was after their latest defeat that one of the club's many social media aggregators published a poll asking their hundreds of thousands of followers if they would still make it to Europe's elite competition. The belief is still there among followers, with 73 percent predicting that this will be the case.
Maresca doesn't panic either. If you had offered him fourth place at this point in the summer, he would have accepted it before you could complete the offer, and finishing fifth might even be enough to qualify for the Champions League next season.
The A team is expected to return for Palace, including goalkeeper Robert Sánchez on Filip Jorgensen, Jadon Sancho on Félix, Pedro Neto on Madueke and Nicolas Jackson on Nkunku.
Chelsea's last three wins at Selhurst Park have required winners in the final seconds, but Maresca could do with a controlled victory this time to regain the optimism of the first half of the season.